Need a Digital Detox Following the Election? Cisco thinks so...

Cheddar News

Guy Diedrich, SVP and Global Innovation Officer at Cisco joined Cheddar to discuss how our digital diets impact our well being & an upcoming study to prove it!

Transcript

00:00We are all connected all the time being working on a laptop, scrolling social

00:07media, on our iPhones, or even tuning out on our earpods. But how are our digital

00:13diets impacting our well-being? Dr. Guy Diederich is the Cisco SVP of

00:18global innovation. He joins us from the digital well-being forum in Italy. Great

00:24to see you doctor. This is the seventh such forum that you're holding but

00:28things are different now and how you are studying our digital well-being. Tell us

00:32how. That's absolutely right. So we all as technologists and technology

00:39companies have been studying digital readiness for over a decade. There are

00:44multiple studies. Cisco has one, the World Economic Forum has one, but really we've

00:50never studied the impact of digitization on a population's well-being. And more

00:57importantly we've never really studied it at an individual level. So that's what

01:04the OECD and Cisco are doing today is launching a digital wellness hub where

01:10people can go and they can take a 10-minute survey, give us an idea of how

01:16they're interacting as a lived experience with a digital world. And

01:22we're going to be gathering that data and it's going to be incredibly useful

01:26not just for us to see how we're interacting with the world in a digital

01:31world but also help influence policy and help influence the way we develop and

01:38distribute technologies. What do you expect you'll do with that data? Were

01:42there assumptions that led you to begin studying this? Yeah the assumptions were

01:49that we're in the middle of an incredible technology evolution. A cycle

01:58that we haven't seen before. Technology is churning so quickly that it's

02:04difficult in some cases to keep up. You know every 18 to 24 months we see a

02:10complete churn of technology. Policymakers are having a hard time

02:15regulating because we're churning so fast. And so first and foremost we

02:20thought you know what let's gather this data from real users. It won't be

02:25theoretical, it won't be academic, it's actual real user data so that we can

02:30help them and inform them on the best policies moving forward. But it'll also

02:36help us as technologists to realize the impact that our technologies are having

02:43on the well-being of the very people that are stakeholders and our customers.

02:49Coming in what do you believe your biggest concerns are today regarding our

02:54digital well-being? You know I think that that remains to be seen. That is why

03:00we're creating this. I think that what you see across the board is a full

03:06spectrum approach. Let's just take AI for instance. You have a group that believes

03:13that AI is all positive, that it's going to fundamentally change the way that we

03:18interact with doctors, the way we are educated, the way we access government

03:23services and all of that's true. But then you also have this other group that is

03:28suspicious of AI, that AI may be moving too quickly. And I think that's why we

03:37have to have this sort of data so the policymakers can keep up with the speed

03:42of evolution and that we as technologists and providers of skills

03:49training can keep up with the incredible evolution of technology and innovation.

03:56When it comes to AI how concerned should we be about a the lack of guardrails and

04:02the capacity for disinformation? You know I think that we're catching up quickly.

04:09The guardrails issue has been one since chat GPT came around. Now I will tell you

04:16this that for instance inside Cisco we've had AI embedded in our technology

04:23for over 10 years. I mean AI has been studied since the late 60s. So AI is not

04:30new, there's nothing new about it. But it came to the public consciousness in just

04:37the last couple three years with the advent of chat GPT. And I think that the

04:44governments are starting to set those guardrails. They didn't want to be too

04:49quick because nobody wants to impede innovation. But at the same time you don't

04:55want people being too opportunistic and to allow people to take advantage. So I

05:02know that the EU has just come out with some good guardrails, that's a great

05:06start. I think the rest of the world will catch up quickly. And once those

05:11are in place then we're going to be able to move at speed. But you've got to have

05:15the guardrails up before you can start speeding down the highway. What gives you

05:20confidence that can happen when we still don't have guardrails around social

05:24media which has been around for decades doctor? Yeah I think that it's going to

05:29come down to a combination of three entities working together that don't

05:35usually work together. And that is industry, academia, and government. I

05:42mentioned the pace of change. You're familiar with Moore's Law. Moore's Law

05:46stated that back when doubling the processor speed every 18 months with a

05:52halving of the cost. You can now apply Moore's Law to our entire industry. It's

05:58churning so fast. And now government, academia, and industry are coming together

06:04to work to make sure that those biggest challenges are being faced and that

06:09everyone has a seat at the table. Because the challenge has always been that

06:14someone's been left out. And so you never have a consensus around those guardrails.

06:20You never have a consensus about a way forward. What we're starting to see is

06:24government, academia, and industry coming together and making sure that this

06:28doesn't happen in this case. Are you suggesting that the AI and the tech

06:33companies want these guardrails? When we look at what happened in California with

06:38some AI regulations, the AI and the tech companies squashed them. And the belief

06:44is that is what will happen across the country. Yeah I'm suggesting that that

06:52the way forward is for industry, academia, and government to come together and come

06:59up with common sense rules. As I mentioned earlier, nobody wants to squash

07:04innovation. And that's obviously what what industry wants to see. We want to be

07:09able to innovate with as much freedom as possible. At the same time, we

07:17can't write our own rules. That's where government has to come in and smartly

07:23regulate. There is a balance. There's a balance between regulation and innovation.

07:30And that's why all three have to be around the table in order to come up

07:34with those rules. Going to be difficult for government to regulate when they

07:38don't truly understand artificial intelligence. No disrespect to government

07:43officials. Most of us cannot grasp what's happening in that segment. Some of the

07:48OECD numbers that you guys have, 50% of people trust information from

07:53social media. It's more men than women. It's far more young people than old.

07:58What's your biggest concern or takeaway from those numbers? You know, we need to

08:05do a better job of educating. And that's absolutely key. Not all

08:12information that's out there is accurate information. But an educated viewer, an

08:19educated consumer, can help parse through that, can look at multiple data

08:25sources, can build a consensus of information and therefore make up their

08:30own mind. But one of the things that we've learned is that 40% of adults in

08:38OECD countries do not have digital skills. And we've got to correct that. In

08:46fact, one of the other stats that we are working on right now, trying to

08:50address, is that two thirds of the population is connected. One third of the

08:57world has no meaningful connection to the internet. And if we were to connect

09:05them, then we would instantly lift 500 million people out of poverty. We would

09:12also be contributing $6.7 trillion to global GDP. So it's not just the morally

09:19correct thing to do. It is also an economically prudent thing to do. And

09:25connecting the unconnected is something that we can do now. We know that. And

09:31here's the other point that's critical and why now is the moment for action.

09:38We're about to connect 500 billion things between now and 2030. So we the

09:44connected, you and me, and those of us that are able to watch this broadcast,

09:49we're the connected, we're the lucky ones. We're about to get on a rocket

09:54ship and go to the stratosphere. The unconnected are going to be invisible.

10:00They're going to stay on the ground. That's not fair. And they deserve to be

10:06on that rocket ship with the rest of us. So to me, number one priority moving

10:10forward is to connect the unconnected, make sure everyone has a fair shot at

10:16prosperity and equality of life.

10:18I think we can agree on that today, maybe the one day I feel like the unlucky one,

10:23being on social media and scrolling the misinformation, in particular, when it

10:28comes to our election, when it comes to our politics, never seen anything like

10:33the amount of political content we are having thrown at us today. Curious as

10:38far as Cisco comes, one of the central issues that you do see on social media

10:42regarding this election is tariffs. They will impact tech, they will impact every

10:46company in the United States. Your CEO, Chuck Robbins, criticized US tariffs on

10:52China last year, saying they were illogical. We've even seen the AutoZone

10:56CEO saying on an earnings call, they will raise tariffs in advance of them if

11:02in fact Donald Trump is elected. How do you prepare for tariffs as a major

11:08company in this country?

11:11You know, Cisco's very fortunate because we have been in the middle of watching

11:17this, along with our other technology companies and all industries, quite

11:23honestly. And what we've done is over the years, we've diversified. We've

11:29diversified broadly around the world. We have multiple countries that we source

11:35from. And quite honestly, it's what we learned coming out of COVID, is that if

11:40you rely too heavily on one country or one region for your sourcing, for your

11:47supply chain, that you do put yourself at risk. So we consciously went out there

11:53and we built up a massive supply chain network that is spread around the world.

11:59So, you know, we'll deal with tariffs as they come. But that diversity of

12:07country affiliation and where we draw from will give us some comfort.

12:13All right, Cisco SVP of Global Innovation, Dr. Guy Diederich, best of

12:18luck with the forum there. Thanks so much for spending some time with us here

12:21on Cheddar.

12:22It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

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